Emperor of the North Pole
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| Emperor of the North | |
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 Emperor of the North Maintitle. |
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| Directed by | Robert Aldrich |
| Produced by | Kenneth Hyman |
| Written by | Christopher Knopf |
| Starring | Lee Marvin Ernest Borgnine Keith Carradine |
| Music by | Frank De Vol |
| Cinematography | Joseph F. Biroc |
| Editing by | Michael Luciano |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | 1973 |
| Running time | 118 min. |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Emperor of the North Pole is a 1973 American movie starring Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, and Keith Carradine. The original title of the movie was Emperor of the North Pole. It was re-released under the shorter title Emperor of the North, and is better known under the latter name.
The movie is about hobos during the 1930s and is set in the U.S. state of Oregon. It is based, in part, on the books The Road by Jack London and From Coast to Coast with Jack London by "A-No.-1" (the pen-name of Leon Ray Livingston), although both of those books predate the 1930s by a few decades. Carradine's character, Cigaret, uses the same moniker that Jack London used on the road, and like London, is portrayed as a young traveling companion to the older A-No.-1 (played by Marvin), but that is otherwise where the similarity between Carradine's character and Jack London ends, as Cigaret is portrayed in the film as immature, loud-mouthed, and none too bright. The title is a reference to a joke among hobos during the Great Depression that the world's best hobo was "Emperor of the North Pole", a way of poking fun at their own desperate situation since somebody ruling over the North Pole would be ruling over a wasteland.
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[edit] Synopsis
Ernest Borgnine plays the infamous Shack, a sadistic railroad conductor who takes it upon himself to forcibly remove all hobos from his train, local No. 19. As the movie opens, he has just thrown a hobo off his train to his death. Another hobo, A-No.1 (Lee Marvin), manages to hop his train with the younger, less-experienced Cigaret (Keith Carradine) not far behind. At the next stop, A-No.1 evades Shack and escapes into the hobo jungle, but Cigaret is caught. Shack threatens to kill Cigaret but is distracted when he gets the message that A-No.1 (who he knows by reputation) has announced that he will be the first hobo to ride Shack's train all the way to Portland.
The other hobos agree that the first hobo who can successfully ride Shack's train will have earned the title "Emperor of the North Pole." The railroad workers place bets whether A-No.-1 can do it, and they spread the news far and wide over the telegraph, as Shack is widely known and disliked among other railroad workers.
The rest of the film has A-No.1 riding the train trying to stay clear of Shack, pulling a series of pranks with the help of other hobos, such as running Shack's train into a siding, and trying to rid himself of the company of Cigaret, who is tagging along on the same train and making a general pest of himself. Shack succeeds in ejecting the two from his train once, but the two board a fast passenger train which overtakes Shack's train, and ride it to Salem, Oregon.
In Salem they have several farcical encounters, including one with a policeman (Simon Oakland) who chases the two into the Salem hobo jungle, accusing them of stealing a turkey, and with a Holiness minister holding an outdoor baptism service. They reboard Shack's train after it arrives in Salem. The film ends with a climactic fight. When A-No.1 has the defeated Shack at his mercy, instead of killing him, he just throws him off the train. He also tosses Cigaret off, for not helping and then bragging about how "they" beat Shack.
[edit] Trivia
- The part of "hogger" was veteran actor Malcolm Atterbury's final film role. His father was once president of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
- No soundtrack album was ever produced; however the theme ballad, A Man and a Train written by Frank De Vol with lyrics by Hal David and sung by Marty Robbins, appears on his album All-Time Greatest Hits (Catalog# 77425), and the CD The Best of Marty Robbins released by Curb Records in January 2006, both including a second verse not used in the film.
[edit] Filming location
The film was shot in and around the city of Cottage Grove, Oregon along the right-of-way of the Oregon, Pacific and Eastern Railway (OP&E).[1] Willis Kyle, President of the OP&E in 1972, allowed the film company unlimited access to make the film.[citation needed] Oregon, Pacific and Eastern's rolling stock, including two steam locomotives (one of these being #19, a type 2-8-2 Mikado), appear in the film.[1] Also featured in the film is the Dorena Reservoir, located about 10 miles east of Cottage Grove,[2] and OP&E's railyard in downtown Cottage Grove.
[edit] DVD version
The film was released in North America on DVD on June 5, 2006 under the title Emperor of the North.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b Oregon, Pacific & Eastern Railway. Abandoned Railroads of the Pacific Northwest. Retrieved on 2006-11-09.
- ^ Row River Trail: Harms Park. City of Cottage Grove, Oregon. Retrieved on 2006-11-09.
